What It’s Like to Have a Vagina that Doesn’t Want to Have Sex

“They are called vaginal dilators,” the doctor said. She held a smooth white box in one hand and a colorless rubber spear in the other. It looked like the world’s least sexy dildo.

I was mortified. I didn’t want to anyone to know about this. Ever. This was going with me to the grave.

As I hurried from the doctor’s office to my car, an innocent looking paper bag clutched under my arm, I kept reflecting on how love, relationships, physical intimacy, and now sex seemed so much more difficult for me than other people. Everyone else made it look so easy.

After stashing the box of dilators under my bed and praying to every God of every religion that no one would find it, I told my best friend about what had happened. In the supportive way only best friends can be, she immediately made fun of my collection of dildos under the bed. For a girl who hadn’t had her first kiss until she was 22, this box of medicinal dildos was a big step for me.

What prompted my visit to the doctor’s office in the first place was my unsuccessful attempts to lose my virginity. A few weeks before I’d tried, once again, to have sex for the first time. I was in my mid-twenties, had been with a man I trusted and cared for for ten months, and was ready to go for it. Except my lady parts had another idea on the matter. They were shutting down faster than Congress trying to make a decision. In the words of Liz Lemon, “It’s Fort Knox down there.”

I’ve always been a smaller person. I didn’t hit puberty until my very last year of high school and weighed under 100lbs until I was seventeen. I’ve always had matchstick legs and to this very day I have a difficult time wearing shorts. Despite always being smaller I never thought this meant ALL of me was smaller. Like allll of me *wink* aka obviously I’m talking about my vagina and probably my uterus and maybe even my ovaries are the size of a piece of rice I don’t know all I know is if I ever have a baby it’s got a dime-sized entryway to the cruel, cruel world.

It’s no secret that losing your virginity can hurt. And I’m here to tell you that yes, for me, it hurt. But I’ve also had friends who didn’t experience this. They did not experience pain. So I’m also here to tell you that it’s different for every person.

After trying a few times to have sex, and it being too painful, I went and talked with my gynecologist. She informed me that I have a narrow vaginal canal and if I was hoping to engage in intercourse I could always, gradually, help my body adjust by using dilators of varying sizes. This allowed me to be exposed to the experience at my own pace. It allowed me to have a say in how I went through this moment in my life.

I also know that my anxiety and nerves had something to do with it. Duh. Anyone who has anxiety knows that it can dramatically affect how your body feels and is reacting to a situation. So OBVIOUSLY when you’re having sex for the first time your anxiety will be present in the room as well, sitting in the corner with a bowl of popcorn just shouting things that will mentally fuck with you like “Oh you think he likes THAT?”

I debated writing this blog post for a long time. More than anything I know how embarrassed my beloved parents would be if they knew I shared a story like this with the world (I love you, I’m sorry).

But I also know that physical intimacy and the act of engaging in sexual intercourse for the first time are scary experiences. It wasn’t all roses and oils and happy-to-orgasm-in-two-minutes for me, which means it might not have been (or might not be) for you. And I wanted to let you know that awkward shit happens and you can still get through it all.

Above all I encourage you to listen to your body and allow yourself to pause or step back if things don’t feel right (physically or emotionally or mentally or intuitively). I’m being serious…are you listening? If you are being physical with someone you are worth feeling safe. You deserve compassion.

There came a time when I moved houses and threw the smooth white box of fleshy rubber dilators in the dumpster. They’d done their job. I was eventually able to have sex. It should have been a cathartic moment, a time when the soundtrack soared in the background cuing the audience to know that I’d moved on from being a woman to being a woman, but all I could think was “I hope nobody goes dumpster diving in this dumpster cuz they’re gona find a box of dicks.”

This has encouraged me to write a post about the Mona Lisa procedure which I have had recently. It is a laser wand to strengthen the vaginal tissue in menopausal women and reduce my UTIs. I has been a success but for the first time a doctor told me that my vaginal entry is smaller than normal and I too have a bright pink dildo which I use before sex. I wish someone had given me a dildo years ago…:)